Dogboarding - Short Film Review

Here is a link to my review for Gorilla Film Magazine of the short film, Dogboarding. It's a disturbing, strange and sometimes shocking concept that is sure to raise a smirk on the faces of everybody outside of the RSPCA. No animals were harmed in the making of this film (or review).

Review:
http://gorillafilmmagazine.com/wordpress/2012/01/24/dogboarding/

Watch the film here:
http://gorillafilmmagazine.com/wordpress/watchfilms/

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review

David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo arrives with quite a lot of pressure on its heavily inked shoulders. Expectation is coming from three fronts: the fans of Stieg Larsson’s novel (of which there are 30 million people and counting), fans of David Fincher (of which there are many) and fans of Niels Arden Oplev’s 2009 Swedish version (the camp I fall most confidently into of the three). But with the firepower of Fincher, James Bond and the girl from the opening of The Social Network (2010), the omens looked promising.

The film follows Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), a journalist who after publicly failing to take down a crooked businessman, decides to shy away from the spotlight leaving his paper and instead doing a job for retired CEO Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Vanger wants Mikael to find the killer of his niece Harriet who disappeared from the family island forty years ago. After fighting some demons of her own, rebellious but brilliant computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) joins Mikael in a hellish investigation of the twisted history of the Vanger family.

From the Bond style oil soaked opening credits that shake to the sound of ‘Immigrant Song’ to the truly inspired use of Enya’s ‘Orinoco Flow’ that haunts one of the film’s more dangerous moments, Fincher brings a style to the story the Swedish version just doesn’t have. And that’s not necessarily a criticism. Oplev’s film (originally made for TV) avoids drawing attention to itself and the result is gritty and raw. Fincher’s is still a tough watch but is flasher, tenser, ultimately more entertaining and as a result, sits much more comfortably on the big screen.

A key element of the film is family. ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad’ wrote Philip Larkin, and if he had lived long enough to see this, he may have been tempted to add a few more family members into the mix. Fincher deftly manipulates our view of the Vanger Island into family member associations and by doing so, creates a piece of land that could rival Scorcese’s Shutter Island in the menacing stakes. By clearly showing us who lives in what part of the island, as it becomes clear that the family largely hate each other, Craig’s Blomkvist finds himself stuck on an island battered by waves of hate and anger. A floating family prison that’s haunted by the ghosts the past.

The performances too are very impressive. Rooney Mara more than matches Noomi Rapace’s acclaimed portrayal of the disturbed girl of the title and at one stage wears a t-shirt that beautiful sums her character up. She becomes increasingly more sexy, dangerous and wounded as the film progresses, a perfect match for Craig’s competent Blomkvist who, if nothing else, has introduced me to a fantastic new way of wearing glasses.

The ending suffers, like the Swedish version, as time ticks by (the film clocks in at 158 minutes) and another, somewhat confusing case has to be wrapped up but that’s more a fault of the book that of Fincher’s direction. By the time the credits roll, you are left with a very impressive, very adult movie that slightly trumps the Swedish version as a result of its cinematic qualities.

Fincher’s film looks great on the surface but you can’t really quite grasp whether there’s a heart beating beneath it until the very last frame. It’s an emotional final moment that surprisingly confirms there is indeed a heart beating beneath Fincher’s polished creation, and it’s ice cold.

My Top 5 Films of 2011

First, a few that didn’t make my top 5 but still have to be checked out. In no particular order: Kill List, The Artist, Le Quattro Volte, The Woman, Bridesmaids, Rango, The Skin I Live In, Submarine, We Need To Talk About Kevin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Archipelgo and the first 40 minutes of Insidious.

And while I'm sticking my two-cents in, my vote for the 'Most Overrated Film of 2011' is a tie between The Tree of Life and Take Shelter. The Tree of Life was a pretty bore whilst Take Shelter was pretty boring.

But onto the list, and at number 5…..

5. The Deep Blue Sea: Terrence Davies' seventh full length feature is also one of his best. An adaptation of the play by Terrence Rattigan, The Deep Blue Sea set 'around 1950' follows Hester (Rachel Weisz) as she leaves her dull, wealthy husband William (Simon Russell Beale) for the passionate Freddie (Tom Hiddlestone). Whether her choice was guided by a lust for love or need for passion, Hester soon finds herself in a desperate situation as characters find their own definitions of love soon to be in conflict with each others. Heartbreaking, beautiful filmmaking, Davies has creating another glorious time capsule as he captures the era perfectly, leaving you wishing for the return of the old fashioned pub sing-a-long. As stunning and classy a piece of cinema as you're ever likely to see.

4. Midnight in Paris: Grossing just over $53 million, Midnight in Paris leapfrogged  Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) to become Woody Allen’s most financially successful film to date. That may not be saying much in a year that saw Transformers: The Dark of the Moon steal just over $1 billon but this year saw Woody Allen make what some see as a long awaited return to form. Whilst I’m a huge fan, even enjoying recent flops like Scoop (2006), Cassandra’s Dream (2007) and Whatever Works (2009), Midnight in Paris is his best film since Mighty Aphrodite (1995) and without a shadow of a doubt, the most magical cinema experience of the year.

3. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The best British film of the year featuring the best actor of the year in Gary Oldman, Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a tense 127 minutes that slowly gets under your skin. Called out of retirement to find a Soviet mole lurking in the smoke stained offices of MI6, Oldman plays George Smiley, a man both doing his job and coming to terms with the idea that some of his closest colleagues may be capable of the deepest form of betrayal. Swapping car chases, shoot outs and adventure for tense silences, stony faces and the best office Christmas party ever committed to celluloid, Alfredson has surpassed the achievements of his last masterpiece (Let the Right One In) and created a very special film indeed.

 

2. Melancholia: Lars Von Trier is something of an acquired taste. Responsible for the most depressing musical of all time (Dancer in the Dark (2000), the dullest Nicole Kidman movie, itself hotly contested accolade (Dogville (2003) and the most shocking film to creep into mainstream cinemas (Antichrist 2009), he is a unique genius at best and a pretentious bore at worst. Even if you like his films, he’s a difficult character to warm to in person, especially after claiming he ‘understands’ and ‘sympathises’ with Adolph Hitler. Remarks that saw him thrown out of the Cannes Film Festival. Of course, this was a joke and like most public comments he makes, wasn’t to be taken seriously. Whether or not you buy the notion that Melancholia is based on his own battle with depression doesn’t matter because the film itself is a true classic. One thing that has always marred Von Trier’s work has been its tendency to fall into long, dull patches, a prime example being Antichrist, a film that’s more shocking moments were linked together by at least an hours worth of yawn. Fortunately, Melancholia breaks this tradition with a passion. Starting with a breathtaking end of the world sequence, the film then darts back in time and splits into two sections. The first ‘Justine’ rivals the opening of The Godfather (1972) for the title of cinemas greatest wedding (it’s at least its funniest) whilst the second, ‘Claire’, is a tense, dread filled wait for the apocalypse that slowly puts the fear of God into you. One of the best experiences I’ve had in a cinema for years (and if you can see it in a cinema – DO!), Melancholia is Von Trier’s best film yet and left the audience I watched it with pinned to their seats long into the end credits thanks to a horrific final image that I still can’t shake.

 

1. Black Swan: Yes, the first film I saw this year, (and my first review for this blog) simply hasn’t been bettered. There’s not much more to say that I haven’t already said in my earlier post (http://weneedtheeggsbpl.blogspot.com/2011/01/black-swan-review.html) but on this form, Darren Aronofsky’s next project, an adaptation of the biblical tale of Noah’s Ark, looks set to violently trump the last attempt at filming the story, an attempt made by Evan Almighty (2007), which in all fairness wasn’t terrible, just more of a shame.  

Film4 Frightfest - Vile Review

 

And so Midnight Movie number 2: Vile. Directed by Taylor Sheridan, Vile managed to create one of the most uncomfortable atmospheres of the festival. Truly nasty, grim, violent and draining, the film for most of its running time shapes up to be something really quite special but, unfortunately, loses any credibility thanks to a dire ending. It may sound like the fate of most entries in the rapidly dying torture porn genre but in the case of Vile, this really is genuinely more of a shame than it sounds.

The film opens as a group of friends are targeted by a perfume selling older woman who in actual fact is something of an Avon service from the bowels of Hell. Before they have time to say thanks but no thanks, she has donned a gas mask and sent them all into a deep sleep. Waking up in a strange warehouse full of other strangers, the ground find themselves tied to chairs with vials (geddit) surgically attached to the back of their heads. A video then tells them that they have 22 hours to fill the vials with a chemical that is released from the brain when a person experiences pain.

So there we go. What follows, as can be expected, is an hour of self inflicted organised pain as the group take it in turns to reach the 100% mark that will unlock the doors and free them all. Vile almost immediately makes itself more interesting than just a film with a sick premise in its handling of personalities. There is a fantastic early discussion as to whether the men should only take part which provoked laughs and passionate ‘gender roles’ arguments from both the men on screen and the entire Frightfest audience.

Surprisingly dark humour also comes from the refreshingly organised manner that the cast get themselves together. The women don’t run around screaming, the men don’t break down and punch walls and the group avoid predictably breaking off into opposing factions. Instead, they pull their heads together and decide to each take a slice of the pain, the whole group attacking one member, then another, then another in a disturbingly calm manner. But as you can imagine, any moments of humour in Vile are soon quashed: this is a grim picture. Tweezers, boiling water, irons and a whole host of nasty rusty tools are used to create a solid hour of wincing.

From the flames of this nasty film arrived the most evil character seen at Frightfest. Kelly (Stefanie Braboza) (and yes I did have to look up the name as after an hour of group mutilation, faces and names tend to blur into one another) establishes herself as enemy number one early on by suggesting the ‘Men only’ policy but further makes herself hard to love by going way overboard in the first group beating by breaking a pair of legs. In fact, a clear indication of how effective Kelly is, is that when it was her turn to be hurt, in a film of solemn, brutal, pain-induced awkward silences, Frightfesters across the cinema passionately cheered.

Unfortunately, for all the good, interesting things that Vile does, in the end all the violence and nastiness just doesn’t have a point. There is a hint all the goings on in the film are to help with some form of medication, but rather than push the idea into a clear message, it remains only a hint and coupled with the fact that there really is no pay off, consequently it’s hard not to think ‘what’s the point?’. If the film was brave enough to follow a film like Martyrs (2008) in having a bold, damning resolution that had something to say, the violence in the film would have at least had some form of wider context to help make the bitter pill easier to swallow. Instead, we are left with an hour and a half of people beating each other up. Nothing more, nothing less.

As it is, the lack of point leave Vile a despicable, pointless near-miss that’s near impossible to recommend. Paul took to the stage prior to the screening and said that he hopes Vile will be torture porn’s final bow. If it is (and I’m sure most agree with Paul), it is something of a shame that the much despised sub-genre will go out with a nasty whimper rather than leaving with something to say.

Film4 Frightfest - Tucker and Dale Vs Evil Review

In what was one of the most heavily anticipated screenings of the festival, Eli Craig’s Tucker and Dale Vs Evil arrived on Friday night and immediately became a favourite of almost everyone who saw it. Playing with hillbilly horror conventions established by classics like Deliverance (1972), Tucker and Dale Vs Evil proved to be a true crowd pleaser and arguably the best horror-comedy since Shaun of the Dead (2004).

The story revolves around Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), two well meaning hillbillies who are looking forward to a peaceful vacation in their new holiday home. Unfortunately for them, a group of horror-cinema savvy teens are also camping in the nearby woods, scaring themselves with tales that play like deleted scenes from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).

When Alison (Katrina Bowden), one of the teens, falls into the nearby lake, Tucker and Dale lend a helping hand but their innocent cries of ‘We’ve got your friend’ start off a chain of deadly misunderstandings that leave the group thinking the harmless hillbillies are actually the kind of backwards folk they see hacking teens to bits on the big screen every weekend.

Craig then takes extreme pleasure referencing his favourite horror movies as each hillbilly horror trope goes against the lovable duo in increasingly bloodier ways as the teens begin to accidentally kill themselves off. To go into anymore detail would be spoiling some brilliantly clever misunderstandings but suffice to say, a chainsaw is at the heart of one of the best.

Despite the first hour essentially consisting of a series of horror conventions being turned on their head, it is a real credit to Craig that the film never feels formulaic or repetitive. Each gruesome mix-up is both clever and funny but the real strength and heart of the film lies in the performances of Tudyk and Labine as the title characters. Tudyk once again brings another reliably assured performance as the straight man of the couple whilst Labine brings that strange warmth and vulnerability that seems to come naturally to bigger actors with beards.

In what are clearly outrageous circumstances, the cynical Tucker and good natured Dale convey a real friendship that is actually affecting and is sure to induce glassy eyes in parts. What makes this even more impressive is that this kind of emotionally twang is somewhat absent from most comedy-horrors, with the only other recent example coming in the latter stages of Shaun of the Dead, “I don’t think I’ve got it in me to shoot my flatmate, my mum and my girlfriend all in the same evening.”

Funny, clever, gory and sure to leave a lump in the throat, Tucker and Dale Vs Evil is one of the best horror-comedies to date. A real winner at Frightfest, it prompts the thought that maybe Leatherface and co have been gravely misrepresented all these years.

Film4 Frightfest 2011 - Blood Runs Cold Review

Following Urban Explorers was my first Discovery screen film, the Swedish (but English language) Blood Runs Cold, a slasher made on a shoestring budget with a lot of charm, a lot of a laughs, a lot of good, a lot of bad and one of best killers I’ve seen in a horror film in a long time.

Directed by Sonny Laguna, Blood Runs Cold sees Winona, a struggling musician move into a new house in her snowy hometown. After she bumps into an old flame and his loved up friends, the four of them return to the house for drinks, partying and sex only to be rudely awoken the next morning by an axe-wielding maniac.

First the bad. The acting is terrible, the gore is poor and it’s as dumb as a movie can be. However, one thing saves this film in a big way – the killer. Wearing a jacket, snow goggles and woolly ski hat, he butchers the cast in a way that would suggest he knows he’s being watched.

Here is a maniac that walks past the window, stops and points at his prey for kicks. A killer that would rather axe an unlocked door to pieces rather than just opening it. You can’t help but imagine him wearing a smirk the size of his axe underneath his bandaged face. He is, simply put, up there with Freddy and Jason - except this  classic killer has seemingly wandered into a student film and therein lies the film’s greatest strengths and fatal flaws.

The sound is dire, I’m pretty sure I saw a mic in a mirror and thanks to shoddy colour correction, parts of the film carry a strange orange glow but these all add up to giving the film a strange amateurish  charm. Couple this with a truly memorable killer and Blood Runs Cold becomes a strange, somewhat kitsch horror movie.

It may seem that a forgotten horror icon is taking his anger out on the crappiest production he can find, but when embraced, Blood Runs Cold can confidently join the brilliantly terrible movie gang alongside Top Gun (1986), Crank (2006), and my all-time favourite, the beautifully bad Shoot Em’ Up (2007).

Film4 Frightfest 2011 - Urban Explorers Review

As my intended screening Rabies sold out, late afternoon arrived and I was looking at my second unexpected film of the day, German underground thriller Urban Explorers. Directed by Andy Fetscher, the film follows a group of adventurous twenty-something who get their kicks by explorering the neglected underground world of Berlin.

As they get dangerously into increasingly,  remote Nazi themed areas, one of them has an accident and is unable to move, but getting help becomes tricky as a strange and clearly mental Former East German body guard named Armin is discovered to be living beneath the surface, stuck in something of a time warp.

Unfortunately that’s about as much as an honest review as I can give as the screening was a bit of a botched job. After having no sound for the first five minutes, it turned out that the print was without subtitles. This seemed to have two effects on the audience – some enjoyed the threatening sense of alienation at not totally understanding the ramblings of the psychotic Armin, others found it frustrating. I fell into the latter.

However, without having a clue what Armin was saying didn’t ruin what was a generally well was made, genuinely suspenseful film with one great fridge-related scare and a surprisingly brutal ending.

An extremely shocked and apologetic Fetscher took to the stage afterwards and apologised for the print, telling Frightfesters that the dialogue was important and that we unfortunately missed some great jokes. Out of respect for what could be a better film with subtitles, I will let my review rest until I get the chance to see the film as it was intended.